Starbuck is one of those high-concept yet formulaic, sitcom-like comedies that gets by on charm and speed. It is manipulative and ingratiating but totally worth your time if you manage to pass one crucial test: Does French-Canadian actor Patrick Huard's smile make you happy?

A solid adult drama, a movie that’s too soft at times but more often tender with its characters. It’s not a film designed to break any new ground, but Wight has skill with character, finding nuance in those moments that many other writer/directors would have turned into pure cliché.

This is a surprisingly toothless and ultimately flat film. It’s salvaged by a truly genuine, sometimes great performance from Josh Brolin, but he’s the only reason to take a look.

Jean-Claude Van Damme, whose work as the villain in Enemies Closer is the only reason to see this film.

While Watts is reliably vulnerable, it’s Judah Lewis as her son Chris who does the heavier emotional lifting.

Lil Rel Howery, Yvonne Orji, John Cena, and Meredith Hagner travel to Mexico in Vacation Friends, but they never really go anywhere.

The best family films capture the imaginations of younger viewers and teach them the power of storytelling in ways that can affect them for their entire lives, possibly inspiring them to create their own stories as well. By comparison, “Sing 2” serves no other purpose than to waste a couple of hours.

We experience the sharp pain of a sad loss, a young father and a beloved neighbor and friend. But the larger story, the one about the failure of the Israeli military to respond quickly, about the normalization of having to have a safe room in every home, about the culture of a country where every citizen serves in the military, and about the return to Murrow’s perceptive warning 70 years ago is what we will carry with us.

Any movie with a cast that includes such live wires as Marisa Tomei, Sam Rockwell and Natasha Lyonne is bound to have something going for it. But the actual stars of this film, directed by playwright/novelist Adam Rapp, turn out to be two veteran second-tier players making their feature screenwriting debut.

Please Stand By is a sensitive character study whose story beats are a little bit overly familiar, to be frank. Dakota Fanning is excellent as Wendy.

West is such a technically accomplished filmmaker, and his cast of semi-regulars so committed to the narrative, that the resultant movie gives enough unsettling atmosphere and upsetting gut-level shock that this viewer didn’t mind too much all the stuff he wasn’t getting, such as intellectual coherence, not to mention any kind of profound insight into the cult hive mind.

A disastrous movie, Don’t Look Up shows McKay as the most out of touch he’s ever been with what is clever, or how to get his audience to care.

Body feels downright old-fashioned: a thriller with tension that doesn't stem from gore, jump scares, or other cheap shock tactics, but rather a creeping dread that grows with each red herring, and slow-burn plot twist.

In the end, Raymond & Ray doesn’t really get to know anyone, merely pushing them toward the inevitable finish line, where they can start their new life chapters with the father who defined them for decades in the rearview mirror.

Someday, we may get the true story of One Direction behind the scenes, full of fears and fights, egos and eccentricities. But today is not that day, and Spurlock is clearly not that storyteller.

Perhaps in one of the alternate universe versions of this movie, the characters come across as human beings acting out of understandable motivations, but the version in this universe tries too hard to both be and comment on the genre of crime stories, and does not succeed at either.

As tedious as Set Fire to the Stars gets, it remains watchable courtesy of the stunning black and white cinematography by Chris Seager.

We don’t need funky tea to know what Ali is thinking; we just need Henson, who makes us care.

For a movie about a larger-than-life personality who shook up the world with his brazenness—and since has had to seek political asylum because of it — The Fifth Estate feels unfortunately small and safe.

As gory as it is corrosively cynical, a supernatural mood piece that's equally influenced by the arthouse horror movies of David Lynch and Roman Polanski, and the grindhouse-ready Satanic Panic films of the '70s, like "To the Devil a Daughter," and "The Devil Rides out."

“A good movie is never too long, and a bad movie can never be too short.” That famous quote from Roger Ebert helps me explain why the Canadian indie comedy Sundowners, though it runs only 97 minutes, felt to me like it lasted 14 hours. Longer than “Lawrence of Arabia.” Longer than “Shoah.”

The plot thickens ... and thickens ... and thickens. Gudegast is clearly an avid student of heist pictures, and he layers this one with a lot of spectacular complications even while he muddles the average viewer’s potential rooting interest.

Rubikon never offers viewers deep answers to its bigger questions, but it does pose enough questions to keep things moving while you watch.

It ends up being little more than a rambling, undisciplined clip show that misfires as both history and entertainment.

Despite the occasional rough patches, there are still some things about Krampus that I did like quite a bit. Although the humor is not always successful, I liked the fact that Dougherty played the material in a relatively straight manner and resisted the urge to go for a more campy approach throughout.

While hardly perfect, a movie that frequently displays surprising sensitivity and sensibility.

It's all a bit overheated, and while there is certainly nothing wrong with melodrama, the problem arises when the script (also by Tornatore) keeps insisting on explaining its own symbolism and subtext, to make sure we get how deep the thing is.

Your Place or Mine begins in 2003, and it feels like the kind of superficially agreeable and instantly forgettable romantic comedy that came out around that time.